Women, organized labor say ‘government’s low birth rate countermeasures are the real national emergency’
By Park Ju-yeon
Published July 4, 2024
Translated by Marilyn Hook
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President Yoon Seok-yeol declared a “population national emergency” on June 19. This was at the 2024 Low Birth Rate and Aging Society Committee meeting held under the theme of ‘measures to reverse the low birth rate trend.’ The government announced that it would reverse the falling birth rate by concentrating its policy capacity on the three key areas of ‘work-family balance’, ‘childcare’, and ‘housing’, but the measures it proposed are not much different from the previous ones in terms of direction. There were budget formulations related to childbirth leave [which is to be used around the time of the birth] and childcare leave [which is to be used at any point before the child turns eight], such as, “We will significantly increase men’s childcare leave usage rate from 6.8% to 50% within the term, and increase women’s childcare leave usage rate from 70% to 80%,” and, “We will also expand childbirth leave from 10 to 20 days for fathers,” as well as housing measures like “priority in purchasing desired housing for households that have just given birth,” “loaning of funds to newlyweds at low interest rates for purchasing or leasing housing,” and “application of additional preferential interest rates each time a child is born.” But many within civil society are skeptical that these measures are fundamental solutions to the problem. In particular, because these policies mainly target middle class people, dual-income couples, and regular workers, there is strong criticism that they will worsen polarization. Some are also pointing out that it seems questionable whether the government properly appreciates the labor conditions facing women and young adults. A coalition of civil society organizations including the Women's Labor Solidarity Conference, Joint Action to Block the Migrant Housework/Care Pilot Project, the 4-day Workweek Network, and the Institution for the Right to Found Family held the “Press Conference Criticizing the Government’s Misguided Low Birth Rate Countermeasures,” at which they declared the measures “the real national emergency.” Held at Communication Hall of the Women's Future Center in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul on July 2, the event featured a torrent of criticism that “nowhere in the government’s policies is there is an indication of the will to solve the fundamental causes of the low birth rate problem." Low birth rate countermeasures that don’t include reducing working hours are empty talk Park Si-hyun, vice chair of the Public Officials' Union and chair of its Gender Equality Committee, asked who can access the 15 core programs in the three areas of the Yoon Seok-yeol government's low birth rate countermeasures, pointing out, “There are no measures for the self-employed or non-regular workers.” Mentioning the gap in the use of childcare leave among male workers announced by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions on March 6th, Ms. Park said, “When both parents were regular workers, 57.2% of men used childcare leave; when one of the parents was a regular worker, 29.4% did; and if neither parent was a regular worker, 13.4% did,” which shows “it is unsuitable for use by non-regular workers, whose employment is unstable.” Citing the fact that “in workplaces with 300 or more employees [whose workers are subject to stronger labor protections under law], 43.8% of regular workers and 12.9% of non-regular workers or indefinite contract workers used it, and in workplaces with 299 or fewer employees, the usage rate was low for both regular workers and indefinite contract workers,” she explained that “the current childcare leave system is a system suitable for use by regular, stable employees at large companies who are less at risk of dismissal.” The announcement from the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions also mentioned that “reasons for men not being able to take childcare leave include concern about how it would be perceived and facing disadvantages in performance evaluations, career advancement, and so on.” Ms. Park pointed out, “If the workplace culture and systems that make it difficult to use childcare leave are not improved across all of society, its utilization may [remain] low.” Kim Jong-jin, the administrative secretary of the 4-day Workweek Network, pointed out, “In the government’s announcement, there are no mentions of improvement in long working hours or the quality of employment in the labor market in line with the discussion on work-life balance that has taken place over the past 10 years.” Mr. Kim also said, “In Korea, the [average person’s] annual working hours is 1,901,” which he explained is “about 149 hours more than the OECD average (1,752 hours) and about 330 hours more than the average of the 27 EU member states (1,571 hours).” He continued, “As many as 17% of people regularly work more than 48 hours [per week], and we use just 66.1% (8.6 days) of available annual leave on average, making it difficult to balance work and life.” The Yoon government even actually raised the 52-hour weekly limit on working hours. Mr. Kim said, “This is not only a regressive policy, but also one that destroys work and life and is in opposition to the low birth rate [countermeasure] policies.” Mr. Kim said, “Reducing working hours is absolutely necessary for care and childcare,” and pointed out, “Low birth rate policies that don’t guarantee minimum living standards for workers are nothing more than empty talk.” Gender equality is missing, the myth of the ‘normal family’ remains There was also a lot of criticism about the omission of gender equality from the low birth rate countermeasures. Oh Gyeong-jin, Secretary General of the Korean Women's Associations United, emphasized, “Korea ranks 94th out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Index as of 2024, its gender wage gap was 31.2% in 2023, which is more than twice the OECD average, and it has consistently ranked first [in this area] over the 27 years since the OECD started collecting these statistics.” However, the Yoon Seok-yeol government has asserted from its inception that “‘there is no structural gender discrimination’” and “has set up and encouraged a framework of gender conflict.”
Ms. Oh said the Yoon administration “abolished [funding for] privately-run employment equality counseling centers, which had been on the front line supporting women who suffered gender discrimination and sexual violence in the workplace for 24 years,” and she also pointed out “that the gender equality policy implementation system, that women’s groups pursuing the value of gender equality and numerous Korean citizens had worked hard to advance over the past 40 years, was instantly set back.” She also said that our society as seen by today's young adults, especially young women, is “traditional family norms centered on heterosexuality/patriarchy, gender inequality in housework/care work within the family, long working hours in the neoliberal order of infinite competition at the cost of leisure and rest, gender discrimination in the workplace, worsening discrimination and inequality inflicted on minority groups, a society where a woman is murdered by her partner at least once every three days, and a poverty rate among elderly women of over 60%.” She concluded, “In short, it is a society that we do not want to pass on to future generations, a society that is not suitable for giving birth and raising children in, and a society that is not sustainable.” There was also criticism of government policies that still have an extremely limited imagination regarding ‘family’ despite continuous changes in family types and the emergence of diverse families. Lee Yoo-na, co-director of Institution for the Right to Found Family, said, “Government policies’ orientation [toward the idea] that giving birth is possible only through marriage—that is, heterosexual legal marriage—and then supporting asset-building for those who are capable of that kind of marriage and that kind of childbirth leaves many relationships other than heterosexual legal marriage in social inequality.” She continued, “The set composition of this population policy of marriage-childbirth-childcare-work-life balance that the government is talking about, which just does not change at all, in fact limits access to common resources based on what kind of caregiver a person is born to—essentially telling everyone to survive solely by luck.” Ms. Lee also said, “We might get divorced, raise a child without being married, take care of a child as a foster parent because the biological parents are not in a position to take care of them, we might take care of a nephew, or help a friend raise their child.” She continued, “When a child is sick, it should not be about struggling to find the person with [official] parental rights who can’t be reached or come. Instead, what we need now is to ensure that the person [actually] taking care of the child can make urgent decisions and handle administrative procedures, as well as ‘care leave’ instead of ‘family leave.’” Designing a ‘care economy’ that places importance on care work Yoon Ja-young, a professor of economics at Chungnam National University, believes that the low birth rates shows “how families and the market perceive and treat those who provide care.” She said, “The economic paradigm that prioritizes the investment of all resources in material production and consumption has deepened the crisis of care by preventing the securing and fair distribution of resources for care.” In other words, “In a society that tells individuals with limited time resources that self-reliance and success through participation in the market economy are what is important, no one is willing to spend time and effort caring for others.” In addition, society “approaches care work as a means for welfare and job creation for the low-income class, while disregarding the labor rights of care workers,” resulting in “care workers [facing] job insecurity and compensation close to the minimum wage.” According to Professor Yoon, “low birth rates are the result of a failure to fundamentally consider how to produce the public good of care, how to distribute responsibilities and obligations, and how to resolve the resulting disadvantages.” She pointed out that the government's policy of shifting care work onto disadvantaged women and migrant workers at low wages "is a temporary response that in the long run will only delay the crisis." In addition, she warned that “work-family balance policies that only apply to some workers, the provision of affordable care services [which rely on low wages for care workers], and policies that make care and child rearing a privilege rather than a universal right are only going to cause conflict between women and men, regular and non-regular workers, Koreans and immigrants, and low-income and high-income households.” Professor Yoon suggested, “We must avoid market economy-centered thinking that assigns care to women and the underprivileged without compensation or at low cost, and instead devise a strategy to share care responsibilities and obligations that centers a ‘care economy’ where families, markets, companies, and the state can harmoniously connect and support home and market care.” Is a child a discount coupon for a house? Solve housing insecurity first
[1] Translator’s note: The group’s Korean name is “mindalpaengi yunion.”
It uses the English name “Minsnail Union” on its website, but a clearer translation
would be “Slug Union.” The name refers to how snails have “houses” (shells) but
slugs do not. The criticism also touched on the government’s low birth rate countermeasures involving housing support. “The measures proposed by the government are just a string of real estate policies that further solidify housing inequality,” said Ji-soo, an activist with Minsnail Union. She continued, “How does lending up to 500 million won to someone who’s buying a 900-million-won home help solve the housing price issue? [And t]he idea of lowering your interest rates every time you have a child is no different from treating children as discount coupons for buying a house. The activist vehemently criticized, “If the government really wants to discuss guaranteeing children’s right to housing, it should have first looked into the housing poverty that children in Korea are already experiencing,” and, “It’s deplorable that there’s urgent need for immediate support measures for households with children in housing poverty but the government’s attention is only focused on those purchasing 900-million-won homes.” In addition, Ji-soo said that young tenants who have fallen victim to jeonse fraud say, “I’m giving up on marriage. I’m giving up on my plans to have children. I don’t have a future. I worked hard for nothing. I’m going to emigrate. I can’t live in this country,” and she strongly criticized, “The policy of ‘buy a house with debt,’ ‘pay a jeonse deposit with debt’ is ultimately a policy that sucks the blood of tenants and inflates the assets of those who already have them. This is continuously being revealed through the societal disaster of jeonse fraud.” “While neglecting the problems of child housing poverty and jeonse fraud, the government is once again proposing policies of housing purchase loans and [housing] subscriptions, which is proof that this government talks about the low birth rate crisis but does not know what the crisis really is,” said activist Jisoo. “What we need is not a home purchase discount coupon but the right to housing, a social right that should be guaranteed to everyone on this land, the right to a place in which to exist.” |
Original Article: https://ildaro.com/9946
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